Singapore embraces barter in recession

Hair styling in exchange for printing jobs. Feng shui services for marketing expertise.
It isn’t your typical mode of business, but as the recession bites, many people and enterprises in Singapore are turning to the age-old practice of barter to pay bills and cut costs.

But gone are the days of the simple one-to-one direct barter. Currently, there are two online barter exchanges — Barter Vista and BarterXchange — and they are attracting hundreds of people seeking innovative ways to stretch their dollars.

“Barter Vista is where business owners, especially small and medium enterprises, come together to barter trade their excessive inventory or their slow time, in return for things that they will otherwise use cash to buy,” said Chew Chee Yong, managing director of Barter Vista, which has about 400 members.

Daisy Leng gets her hair styled at Tranzform Hair Studio, a barter website member, which in turn gets printing and web publishing services from another member. These days, the services most traded are printing, marketing, public relations and advertising.

Although bartering is relatively new in Singapore,Chew expects the site’s trade volume and membership to double in 2009, largely due to the global economic crisis.